Ellouise's Storytelling Salon
Saturday, July 10, 2010 at 03:48PM I have had a lovely time playing with Storyteller Ellouise Schoettler this week. Every first Wednesday of the month at 7.30pm she hosts a Story Telling Salon in Kensington Row bookstore not far outside Washington DC.
Last Wednesday was my first visit and as I drew up outside I fell in love with the venue and the feeling increased as I crossed the threshold. The bookstore is magical - the shop that time forgot - a movie scene in the making – 84 Charing Cross Road moved to Maryland: Truly a perfect setting for a storytelling evening.
The tellers were Cricket Parmalee and Nick Newlin. Cricket told three creation stories and the audience was entranced.
The first, the closest to my heart, was the biblical version from the very beginning of Genesis. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…”
As always, I melted on hearing those verses.
Clearly the Almighty did also.
As Cricket got to: “And God saw that the light was good…” a train roared past on the nearby tracks blasting its whistle enthusiastically for all the world like a divine soundtrack.
Another of Cricket’s stories, this time from the Hindu tradition, was particularly haunting. It was a healing tale, both beautiful and profound, describing how day and night came into existence so that grief could become more bearable as the progression of time dimmed its pain.
Nick told well crafted biographical stories that shed light on how a Harvard graduate became Nicolo, a full time professional juggler, married a high wire performer – Joanne, the delightful “Queen of Whimsy” - and years later emerged as a Shakespeare scholar.
It was a wild and fascinating ride beautifully told!
Besides being a juggler and storyteller, Nick is a teaching artist at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC and has just written a series of books called “The 30-minute Shakespeare” which enables students of all levels to be able to quickly grasp, perform and grow to love the Stratford Bard’s classics.
At the end of the telling Ellouise skillfully led a question and answer session that gave a window into each performer’s world. All fascinating stuff!
The salon takes a summer break in August and will resume on September 1st when Ellouise and I will be sharing the program. I am looking forward to telling and hearing stories in this wonderful venue – a book-aholic’s dream.
Do come and join us!
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